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Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Ok, on reflection, I can think of heaps of things worse. Still, pineapple in cake - blegh.

But it just so happens that pineapple upside down cake is my husband's favourite, so I had to give it a go. And by 'favourite' I mean I asked him what he'd like me to make him, he replied 'pineapple upside down cake', I said, 'I've never seen you eat that the entire time I've known you,' and he said, 'yeah, I haven't had it for like 10 years.'

Still, his favourite apparently.

For obvious reasons (seriously - pineapple in cake?? Why am I the only person weirded out by this?!) I'd never made pineapple upside down cake before, so had no idea how. I googled the recipe and found a brilliant - and easy one - on bestrecipes.com.au.

This was the result:

It's a bit of a cake wreck in my opinion - see how it sags in the middle? I'm assuming that's the fault of my terrible, terrible mini oven as opposed to a flaw in the recipe. My oven never cooks anything in the time it's meant to. This cake is meant to take an hour - it only took 25 minutes. But at least it was cooked all the way through. That's something, right?

This cake is definitely one for those with an over-active sweet tooth. See how it's darker on top? That's because you have to spread the bottom of the cake tin with mixed brown sugar and butter before putting the pineapple down.

I managed to make the whole damn thing without a single taste test :P

Personal bias aside, my husband and the two friends he shared the cake with thoroughly enjoyed it - and as an FYI for those that actually like pineapple in cake, have it warm with custard :)

Saturday, 26 May 2012

I've been making earrings out of left over puzzle pieces from the puzzle my husband and I used to cover our chest of drawers.

Why cover a chest of drawers with a puzzle? Why not? But specifically though, it's kind of my fault.

We'd bought ourselves a very cheap, white chest of drawers that you have to put together yourself. This was easier said than done. Cheap flat-pack furniture hardly ever goes together the way it should, and this was no exception. I ended up poking a hole through the top from underneath with a piece of dowel. You know, as you do.

So we had to cover it with something, and a puzzle seemed the obvious choice.

We bought a wolf puzzle from the local op-shop for $6 and set to work.

Here's what it looked like at the beginning:

Note the messed up bit on the bottom left. Yeah, that's what happens when you're more stubborn than the dowel.

Basically, we made the bulk of the puzzle directly on top of the drawers so we could see how it would fit and where we wanted it. It was a fair bit wider than the drawers, so we had to call in reinforcements:

Once the puzzle was completed we used a piece of card to very carefully slide it off, applied a thick layer of Selleys Kwik Grip glue to the top of the drawers with an old sponge (we did try out a small section with the craft glue in the first picture, but no joy. Also the lack of an apostrophe in 'Selleys' greatly disturbs me) then slid the puzzle back into place and smoothed it down.

Because of the width issue the sides had puzzle pieces overhanging, and gaps where the remaining puzzle didn't quite reach the sides. To compensate, we pre-removed a few random pieces top and bottom, to try and make it look like it was all just part of the design :P

Once we'd left it overnight to dry (and nearly suffocated in glue fumes - that Selleys stuff is insane) I cut off the overhanging puzzle pieces with a scalpel.

Saturday, 19 May 2012

My husband and I did a puzzle the other night (cos we're hardcore), and used it to cover a cheap, white chest of drawers. Since the puzzle was too big we ended up with a fair few left over puzzle pieces and I thought, 'now what can I do with these?'

The answer, obviously, was to make jewellery with them.MD9DWHR8Z2C3
First, a Narnia inspired piece:

These earrings show locations from the Narnian map: the lamppost and Mr. Tumnus's cave.

Each earring includes two natural black pearls.

Every puzzle piece is different - so every earring is unique!

Next, patchwork painted puzzle pieces!

(Try saying that five times fast).

I kind of went for retro 80's colouring - who doesn't love baby pink and grey? Nobody, that's who.

Friday, 18 May 2012

Feeling crook is the perfect excuse to have a lazy day, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Tonight, my husband and I are watching all 4 Alien movies, and directly after posting this, I'll be playing Zoo Tycoon. (He's playing Diablo 3 as I type).

And since I've been having a pretty lazy week in general, I have bugger all to post. Hence I feel compelled to share a few of my favourite pics I've found on the internet - you know, to fill the void until I'm baking and creating again. All of these were found on either Win Blog, Pinterest, I Waste So Much Time, or Imgur.